GraCALC: An Accessible Graphing Calculator

Cagatay Goncu and Kim Marriott

Summary

We present a new approach to providing mathematical and statistical graphics to people who are blind or have severe vision impairment and describe the implementation and initial evaluation of an accessible graphing calculator, GraCALC. The graphic is presented on a touch device and a mixture of speech and non-speech audio and optional haptic feedback allows the user to explore the screen and understand what is beneath their fingers. The graphic can be annotated by text and audio to allow collaboration and is automatically created from a specification of the function or data. An overview containing a sonification of the graphic and a description similar to that created by a human transcriber is also automatically generated so as to help the user in their initial navigation.